Canada’s support for Israel leading to its isolation, Iran warns

Canada’s support for Israel was leading it to “self-imposed isolation,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

“The continued radical stances by the Canadian officials against Iran, specially under the present conditions, show that the Canadian government’s approach towards Iran lacks a logical rationale,” the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesperson Marziyeh Afkham as saying on Thursday.

She added: “By following the Zionist regime’s stances Canada’s conservative government is quickly moving towards a self-imposed isolation in the international community and even among its old allies.”

Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012, with its then-foreign minister John Baird citing the Tehran regime as “among the world’s worst violators of human rights” and charging that it “shelters and materially supports terrorist groups.”

Earlier this month, Canada’s Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson was decidedly reserved in his reaction to the nuclear accord reached between Tehran and six world powers, saying his country would maintain its economic sanctions against Iran for the time being, even if other Western powers drop them.

“Iran continues to be a significant threat to international peace and security owing to the regime’s nuclear ambitions, its continuing support for terrorism, its repeated calls for the destruction of Israel, and its disregard for basic human rights,” Nicholson said.

“We will continue to judge Iran by its actions, not its words. We will examine this deal further before taking any specific Canadian action.”

Paraphrasing Afkham, Fars said Tehran “called on the Canadian officials to step in a rational and wise path against war-mongering and extremism.”

AP contributed to this report.